My Best Friend - II

Vibhor referred me to this blog. I had been thinking about how pointless it is to write here, and couldn't think of anything to write about, but this post hit me really bad. I am really missing Sheru and Heena now.

My relationship with my family, like with most other people I know, isn't exactly great. We have learned to tolerate each other, and probably share a bit more of our happiness and sadness than we would with a complete stranger, but I have increasingly grown distant from them. Apart from some close cousins, I can't bear meeting any relative. Even the communication with my parents and sister is really minimal. I find it incredible when some of my friends tell me that they call home everyday. So, when I do go home once in a while, I spend most of my time with our dogs. They understand everything. Expect nothing. Of course, since I have largely been away from home since the time these two chaps came into our family, I don't connect with them as much as I had with the earlier Heena.

Had recently read a post by Jai Arjun Singh, where he was talking about Foxie after watching Paa. Dogs really are like living with children with Progeria. From the day they come into your life, you know you will most likely outlive them. You will see them grow from these small, cute pups into sturdy adults and then gradually wither into weakness. And then they'll leave. If you have ever had an animal you loved die, you would know how maddeningly painful it is.

I have had this debate more than once with a close friend, who does not think very highly of having pets, about this 'love' that people profess for dogs, or for any other animal. Do we really love dogs, when we commit them to a life of domesticity, sort of emasculating them and preventing them from living a life of freedom, in the wild, or even around humans but fending for themselves.

I am not sure. I do make the same mistake that many others do - of confusing a dog's dependence on me for food, for taking him out for a walk, for playing with him with a ball, as his love for me. Deriving happiness from treating an animal like a kid, turning a creature into a baby that needs your care and then feeling good about providing that care - does that animal really need it? Isn't that care, that proximity, that understanding you can never share with another human being, more your need than the animal's?

As I said, I don't know. I probably do need that love more than the dog. I probably needed Heena more in my life - to sit with her and talk to (and with) her, to go on long walks with her, to feel the gratification of her telling me that she had missed me when I would come back from a trip, to help me cope with a lot of pain and confusion that growing up was - than she ever needed me or my family.

And I am willing to bear the punishment for having subjected her to a life less free than she might have had otherwise. The pain that punishment would involve, or the much greater pain I undergo every time I think about her and miss her, cannot match up to what she gave me in those 10-11 years she was around.

That is why, even though I know I will be renewing my chances of even more pain in the future by doing this, I wish I will be able to have a dog as a pet once more.

And, I hope Badal comes back. Or at least is happy wherever he is.